books: unnatural death by dorothy sayers

This is just quick thoughts:

(Note: If you see Hindi characters jump out, not my fault. I somehow made a hotkey--somewhere--that flips my keyboard to Hindi. I can't do it on purpose at Duolingo to save my life, but by God, when writing, I am suddenly in a different language. It's--weird. And I can't find the goddamn hotkey.)



1.) I did a little dance when Hallelujah got his 10,000 pounds. I keep thinking how his family reacted to it.

(His grandfather was an asshole; fuck him.)

2.) Good God Mary Whittaker was an ass. I mean yes a sociopath, but as Lady Mary said on the occassion a similar though not identical situation: I could live with you being a murderer but not as ass.

I can respect smart; I could even understand--in a very theoretical way--her point of view. Right up until the point there was a body count, then it was 'sociopathic ass'. And worse, she was cold-bloodedly stupid and pointlessly cruel. She created all the evidence against her after the fact by by sheer persistent paranoia. That's impressively dumb.

3.) I still cannot read Agatha and Clara as other than genteel lesbians living happily on a farm and everyone knew it. And I mean inside the text, so I have no idea what Dorothy was doing there, because the story went out of its way to not make them spinster buddies, and I'm a Regency reader who is used to the spinster buddies thing. For fuck's sake they were compare/contrast to Mary and poor Vera and how unhealthy the latter were compared to the former. Like, yeah, I do queer text reading and am in fanfic where I celebrate it, but in this case, it would be a pointless effort to try to read it otherwise.

IDK, I don't care, Agatha and Clara were happy lesbians doing some horsebreeding and homemaking, it's great. I got my romance hit. I really want a day in the life or something.

4.) I am charmed by Miss Climpson's punctuation and italics. I could read a book of letters from that woman forever.

Comments

[toujours_nigel]

I do think Agatha and Clara were supposed to be the contrasting Good Lesbians.

[seperis]

Thank God; it was just so set up I kept having to stop and go 'huh'.

[jadesfire]

It's such fun seeing someone else read their way through my favourite book series. Cannot disagree with any of this, and feel I should also point you towards the Shedunnit podcast, specifically Episode 3.

Miss Climpson is an utter joy, and I would absolutely buy her hypothetical book.

[jamethiel]

The phrase "friend of Dorothy" came into being for a reason. It's almost certain she WAS writing them as a lesbian couple.

[goss]

I somehow made a hotkey--somewhere--that flips my keyboard to Hindi

Ha! If you ever figure it out, please let me know! In addition to Visual Art, I also teach baby-level Hindi (letters and nouns mostly) at school and setting lessons and exams in Word is a PAIN, because I usually "insert symbol" one by one to make up words. D:

[seperis]

I have a laptop with a touch screen, so when I download a new keyboard for the optional touchscreen keyboard, it populates onto my regular keyboard. The hotkey is the devil by doing it without calling the onscreen keyboard, just--doing the flip.

(Literally nothing would have gotten me through my early Hindi lessons without it.
And speaking of, it's time for an alphabet review.)

[goss]

Oh! I hardly ever use the touch screen keyboard on my laptop, but that is something I will certainly try out for the Hindi letters now. Thanks!

Cool that you're using Duolingo! I am too, but right now I'm going through all their Intro lessons one-by-one, to pick up their language teaching methods, since the kids find Hindi symbols a real challenge to pick up (and my teaching training was Art, not a foreign language).

I only know basic grammar, but would one day love to be fluent. :)

Hindi Letter Tracing

[seperis]

I almost forgot--this might be useful; at least, I find it useful.

If you have a touchscreen laptop or tablet running Windows 10, there's an app called Hindi Letter Tracing in the Microsoft Store that's free. It does work (comments do not think so), but it took me a bit to figure it out; when tracing, you have to lift your pen/finger from the screen when you complete the part of each letter, not just keep a continuous motion; no I don't know why. But it worked amazingly for me to practice making the shape of the letter while listening to or making the associated sound and helps me retain better.

The music is super annoying after a while and the 'ooops!' when you don't lift your pen from the screen after making first tiny foot on the ग kind of makes you homicidal. For some reason, it doesn't automatically make the sound while you write, which would be nice, so I generally do sound effects myself (to cover that damn "oops"). But from the chart I got from a coworker, it has most if not all the letters.

I want to eventually get to at least adequate; my Indian coworkers have been encouraging me to visit India and I'd like to be able to have some basic conversations with people in their own language. I keep wondering if maybe there's something like a two or three week language camp; combine vacation with education and oh God, the food. I will also eat everything I see.

(Er, assuming they speak Hindi: my coworkers all speak Hindi, but not all as first language, and I'm still blown away most of them speak a minimum of three languages fluently and more than one, five. Five.)

Re: Hindi Letter Tracing

[goss]

Hindi Letter Tracing

Thank you for the heads up! I can let the kids know since I bet there are definitely those who would find it useful. :)

I'm still blown away most of them speak a minimum of three languages fluently and more than one, five. Five.

HA, SERIOUSLY, how? My brain can barely remember a random word in Spanish after doing it in high school for 3 whole years, how are they so good at multiple languages??? Totally envious here. :b

I have a theory that it's somehow a learned skill from childhood environment and not genetics. My cousin who grew up in India from age 3, came to Trinidad to live when she was 12 years old. So at that point Hindi was her first language, and English her second language. She started (English-speaking) school here in Trinidad, and in 3 months time was first in class for both Spanish and French. O_O

[seperis]

There's also--and you may already have this--a site with Hindi letter worksheets, but you have to download and print each one individually and yeah there are a lot and I couldn't find a zip folder with all of them available. If you didn't run across it, I can try and find the site again.

[goss]

Oh yes! Those are great for penmanship! :)

Pity that I have such limited resources at school though. I gave up on the teaching method of distributing worksheets a while ago. I teach a total of 16 different classes, 34 students per class (that's 500+ individual students per week), so the office wards me off from asking for photocopied papers, unless it's to print exams (and even then I get grief). /o\

Since I bought a laminator, I was thinking of laminating an alphabet set, and just have the kids trace using whiteboard markers on the sheets while with me in class, and wipe off after, so it's ready for the next class to use..?

[nestra]

Miss Climpson is the best.

[venetia_sassy]

Miss Climpson is a continuing delight.

And I agree on all other points as well! I mean, with 2) one of my great-aunts lived in a similar set-up and no one ever actually said they were lesbians at the time, just 'great friends' but um, yeah. Wish I could have known my great-aunts. The other was a doctor and lifelong spinster.

[that_mireille]

Oh, yes, I don't think we're supposed to read Agatha and Clara as anything *but* lesbians. (There's another pair later on, too, in Strong Poison, that I'm 100% sure we're supposed to read that way.)

[princessofgeeks]

Miss Climpson fills me with sheer delight.

OF COURSE you are right about Agatha and Clara.

[bratfarrar]

Yeah, they're definitely a couple, and there are some more in the bohemian set that shows up in a couple of the other novels.

Miss Climpson makes a number of other appearances, and is a delight in every one.

[linbot]

If you are on a mac, keyboard switching defaults to apple-space which is pretty easy to hit accidentally. Mine sometimes jumps to hiragana for the same reason; I love Duolingo.

[legionseagle]

Agreed on all points. Especially about Clara and Agatha. I mean, everyone from the old nurse onwards makes it clear that they've been dedicated to each other "forsaking all others" since school, for crying out loud (also, I'm deeply amused that the fortune that Mary Whitaker's after was created by Clara, independent businesswoman, with the support of Agatha, domestic partner -- I bet she was the one who arranged for delightful post-hunting suppers and teas to let Clara work up her business connection with buyers and intermediaries -- and not inherited wealth at all.)

Also, when I first went to university to study law, I opened my land law text book and there was the 1925 Law of Property Act, still there, still in force and still causing problems (though I think the great-niece point was subsequently settled in favour of the remoter descendants.)

[seperis]

I bet she was the one who arranged for delightful post-hunting suppers and teas to let Clara work up her business connection with buyers and intermediaries -- and not inherited wealth at all.

You just nailed one of the missing scenes of their lives I want. It's not like being a good hostess isn't one hell of a skillset, and to support a woman-owned, woman-run business, Agatha would be pulling out all the stops to get buyers into the mood to hand over money.